Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] KVM: Add paravirt remote TLB flush

[Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>]

On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 04:43:32PM +0800, Wanpeng Li wrote:
> Hi Peterz,
> 
> I found big performance difference as I discuss with you several days ago.
> 
> ebizzy -M
>                         vanilla    static/local cpumask     per-cpu cpumask
>  8 vCPUs       10152            10083                          10117
> 16 vCPUs        1224              4866                          10008
> 24 vCPUs        1109              3871                            9928
> 32 vCPUs        1025              3375                            9811
> 
> In addition, I can observe ~50% perf top time is occupied by
> smp_call_function_many(), ~30% perf top time is occupied by
> call_function_interrupt() in the guest when running ebizzy for
> static/local cpumask variable. However, I almost can't observe these
> IPI stuffs after changing to per-cpu variable. Any opinions?

That doesn't really make sense.. :/

So a single static variable is broken (multiple CPUs can call
flush_tlb_others() concurrently and overwrite each others masks). But I
don't see why a per-cpu variable would be much slower than an on-stack
variable.